The Blue Jackets won the game against the Predators. A game that saw the Blue Jackets score four goals. The Predators were up 2-1, and the Jackets scored three goals in a row, from Voracek, Murray, and Huselius. The Preds tried to make a come back with a goal from Peters.

It’s nice to say we won a game against Nashville. Again, we don’t do it often so when we do, even if it is just a preseason game, it’s a BIG deal. I found this quote from Trotz interesting, it’s his response to Hitch putting in Nasty.

“You can call it gamesmanship or whatever. There are things we want to do in Nashville, so we’ll go about our business. I’m sure Hitch is doing the same thing. He’s trying to change certain things in Columbus, attitudes or whatever, so his message to his team will be a lot different than my message to my team. I’m trying to sort out some of our positions of competition. That’s priority number one in these first three games.

“So we’ll treat it as a regular preseason game, nothing special. If they want to make it a big deal, they have a different message than us. We’re just going to go up there and do our thing.”

The Blue Jackets are playing the Nashville Predators tonight at home. It’s the preseason home opener and the Blue Jackets are bringing out the big players for this game. The Predators rivalry is an interesting one to say the least. We only beat the Predators ONCE last season, and the season before that, we never beat them. No one is okay with this, and that’s why, this is our lineup for tonight:

Erik Felde, Ryan Garlock, John Hughes, Brian McGuirk, Peter Pohl, Kirill Starkov, John Vigilante, Shane Willis, Trevor Hendrikx, Dan Smith, Jon Landry, and Ryan Mior were the men cut. None of the names surprise me, they weren’t expected to make the big club. McGuirk, Pohl, Starkov, Vigilante, Hendrikx, Smith, and Landry were assigned to the Crunch. We still have to get it down a lot more before opening night.

Nikita Filatov won’t be playing on Friday, he will likely play one week from today, at the game against Buffalo, or Friday vs the Wild. I will likely be attending the game against the Wild.

Here are my thoughts so far on what is going on with the Jackets, and who I think will be on the ice opening night.

Oh yeah, everything. So, let’s start from the beginning. There was some HUGE news in Jackets land on Tuesday, when it came out that goaltending prospect Steve Mason was having yet another surgery and is expected to be out another four to six weeks. Mason had damaged cartilage removed from his left knee.

“Steve is very disappointed,” Howson said. “He is an ambitious young man and he’s a talented young man. He was coming here to make the team. We just want to get him healthy and ready to play again.”

If this injury sounds familiar, it should. Leclaire went through the same thing in the 2005-2006 season.

The Columbus Blue Jackets have made the first string of cuts. They sent Steven Delisle, Matt Calvert, and Brent Regner back to their junior teams. All three were selected in the 2008 Entry Draft, so it’s not surprising to see this happen. They’re young players who still need time to develop.

Puck-Rakers has revealed the roster for tomorrow night versus Chicago. Not really surprised that none of the big name players are in aside from our backup goalie, Fredrik Norrena. Norrena will likely get the start instead of LaCosta, just to get Freddy going. On defense they have mostly the young guys in:

This came as a bit of a shock to me yesterday, and I couldn’t wait to blog about it. Rookie, Derick Brassard, was centering a line with Nash on his left wing, and Huselius on his right. It was thought going into camp that Umberger would be centering the top line, but for now, they are trying this out. I like it a lot. Umberger is more of a second line center, Brassard has the talent to be a number one center, but it just depends on how he is developed, and we certainly don’t want to rush that like we did with Brule.

I think Brassard was pretty excited to be given the opportunity to play with those two. After one sequence the packed Ice Haus gave Nash, Brassard, and Huselius a round of applause. I wish I could have been there.

Michael Peca will be missing the beginning of camp, according to the Dispatch. He is suffering from bronchitis, and the doctors don’t want to take a chance on it turning into pneumonia. This isn’t exactly an ideal situation for the Jackets, but it is something that we will have to suffer through. No word on how long he will be out.

Zherdev is becoming quite popular in the world of the Rangers. As Paul pointed to early, there was an article written about Zherdev and his potential. There were some interesting statements made in the article, as Light the Lamp pointed out.

I am officially a member of Kukla’s, I can’t believe it. You can count on me for all the latest news on the Blue Jackets, prospects and all. If you don’t know who I am, here is what you need to know. I started Bethany’s Hockey Rants in January 2007, and have been a member of HLOG since February 2007, and I love the Blue Jackets. I am absolutely thrilled to be blogging on Kukla’s Korner, and starting a rivalry of some sort with Abel to Yzerman.